Uses, Cultural Significance, and Management of Peatlands in The
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1 Uses, cultural significance, and management of peatlands in the Peruvian Amazon: 2 implications for conservation 3 Christopher Schulz a, Manuel Martín Brañas b, Cecilia Núñez Pérez b, Margarita Del Águila 4 Villacorta b, Nina Laurie c, Ian T. Lawson c, Katherine H. Roucoux c 5 a Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Downing Place, Cambridge CB2 3EN, 6 United Kingdom 7 b Amazonian Cultural Diversity and Economy Research Programme, Peruvian Amazon Research 8 Institute (IIAP), Av. José A. Quiñones km 2.5, Iquitos, Peru 9 c School of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews, Irvine Building, 10 North Street, St Andrews KY16 9AL, United Kingdom 11 12 Corresponding author: 13 Christopher Schulz ([email protected]) 14 Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Downing Place, Cambridge CB2 3EN, 15 United Kingdom 16 17 E-mail addresses co-authors: 18 Manuel Martín Brañas: [email protected] 19 Cecilia Núñez Pérez: [email protected] 20 Margarita Del Águila Villacorta: [email protected] 21 Nina Laurie: [email protected] 22 Ian T. Lawson: [email protected] 23 Katherine H. Roucoux: [email protected] 24 25 Acknowledgements 26 The authors would like to thank the communities of Nueva York and Nueva Unión, Loreto, Peru, 27 for agreeing to participate in this research. Further thanks are due to Sam Staddon and Mary 28 Menton for advice on community benefits, Michael Gilmore on participatory mapping, Harry 29 Walker on doing research in Urarina communities, Greta Dargie on peat and peatland 30 characteristics, Eurídice Honorio Coronado, Tim Baker, Jhon del Aguila Pasquel, and Ricardo 31 Zárate on the ecology of the area, and Althea Davies for comments on an earlier version of this 32 manuscript. Funding from the Scottish Funding Council (Global Challenges Research Fund 2017- 33 2018) and the Natural Environment Research Council (ref. NE/R000751/1) is gratefully 34 acknowledged. 35 36 1 37 Uses, cultural significance, and management of peatlands in the Peruvian Amazon: 38 implications for conservation 39 40 Abstract 41 Tropical peatlands play an important role in the global carbon cycle by acting as significant carbon 42 stores. South America’s largest peatland complex is located in the Loreto Region of the Peruvian 43 Amazon. Here we present the first study of human relations with these peatlands, including their 44 uses, cultural significance and current management, as well as implications for conservation, based 45 on qualitative research with people living in two riverine rural communities. Our results indicate 46 that peatlands are culturally ambiguous spaces, used mainly for hunting, palm fruit harvesting, and 47 timber, but feared due to the dangers of getting lost, sinking into the ‘sucking’ ground, and being 48 attacked by anacondas and/or mythical creatures. While the difficult terrain and remoteness of 49 peatlands have thus far acted as natural barriers to their destruction through conversion to different 50 land uses, overuse of natural resources is nevertheless a significant concern for people living in the 51 peat-dominated landscape of the Peruvian Amazon, mixed with frustration about the lack of 52 outside support to foster environmental conservation and economic opportunities. We explore 53 how evaluations of the present situation differ across one indigenous and one mestizo community. 54 We identify a range of nascent peatland conservation strategies, including seedling planting to 55 regrow valuable (palm) trees, and the climbing of palm trees for harvesting fruit as opposed to 56 felling them. We argue that peatland conservation could be combined with the development of 57 sustainable management strategies, but that this would require sustained engagement by outside 58 organisations with rapidly growing local communities in these areas. 59 60 Keywords 61 Amazon; conservation; environmental management; peatlands; Peru; Urarina 62 63 1 Introduction 64 Tropical peatlands play an important and, until recently, underappreciated role for the global 65 climate system, due to their capacity to process and store large amounts of carbon (Rieley & Page 66 2016). The largest known areas of peatland in the tropical latitudes are found in Amazonia, 67 particularly in the Loreto Region of Peru (Draper et al. 2014; Lähteenoja et al. 2012), in Southeast 68 Asia (Page et al. 2011), and the Congo Basin (Dargie et al. 2017). While Southeast Asian peatlands 69 have been heavily affected by human uses and degradation (Dohong et al. 2017), South American 70 and African peatlands are still comparatively intact, possibly due to the lower population density, 71 continued availability of more suitable land for agriculture, and the comparatively higher cost of 72 converting remote peatlands for agriculture, among others (Lilleskov et al. 2018; Roucoux et al. 73 2017). 74 Nevertheless, very little is known about local people’s relations with peatlands in the Peruvian 75 Amazon as most research on human uses, management and conservation of tropical peatlands has 76 focused on Southeast Asia (e.g. Medrilzam et al. 2017; Nath et al. 2017; Tachibana 2016; Thorburn 77 & Kull 2015). Globally, people’s relationships with peatlands are shaped not only by material uses 78 of their natural resources (Page & Baird 2016), but also by their cultural status (Byg et al. 2017; 79 Lehtinen 2000; Wilson 2018), which may have implications for their conservation and management. 2 80 Similarly, socio-economic factors play an important role in shaping human-peatland relationships 81 (Dohong et al. 2017; Medrilzam et al. 2017; Tachibana 2016). 82 People living in remote and rural communities are often the principal actors shaping ecosystem 83 management in their surroundings (Álvarez Alonso 2012; Berkes 2004; Fabricius et al. 2007; 84 Waylen et al. 2013), yet their voices and perspectives are seldom heard in wider debates. Here we 85 address this gap by engaging with the views of people living in peatland areas of Loreto, Peru, 86 based on findings from semi-structured interviews and participatory mapping with local 87 community members in two Amazonian communities, and site visits with local guides to 88 neighbouring peatland areas. We examine the material and intangible values local people place on 89 peatlands, the uses they make of them, the forms of management and implications for peatland 90 conservation. In this paper, we define ‘local people’ as ‘people living in rural communities in the 91 immediate vicinity of peatland areas’. Our findings are relevant to decision-makers from local to 92 international scales, seeking to develop appropriate conservation and management strategies for 93 tropical peatlands in the Peruvian Amazon and beyond. 94 95 2 Materials and methods 96 This is the first study to engage with local people’s views on the uses, cultural significance, 97 management, and conservation of peatlands in Peruvian Amazonia. We thus followed an 98 exploratory research approach, using multiple qualitative methods. Twenty semi-structured 99 interviews with 27 inhabitants of a small indigenous community of about 150 inhabitants (near the 100 Chambira River, Loreto Region) and 31 interviews with 35 interviewees in a mestizo community1 of 101 about 1,200 inhabitants (near the Tigre River, Loreto Region) were carried out by a team of four 102 Peruvian and British researchers [anonymised for peer review] between March and April 2018 (see 103 Figure 1 for the study location within the wider Pastaza-Marañón Basin). Given the absence of 104 previous research on the topic, we chose to do research in two very different communities. This 105 allowed us to explore the potential role of cultural differences, as well as variations in factors such 106 as community size, history, integration into wider Peruvian society and economy, among others, 107 for people’s relations with surrounding peatland areas. Both communities had been visited by 108 members of the research team prior to our fieldwork, which we believe helped to establish the 109 necessary trust to conduct effective research there. 110 [Insert Figure 1 around here] 111 The indigenous community is exclusively populated by members of the Urarina indigenous nation 112 whose ancestors are likely to have lived in the area for centuries, although the exact location of the 113 current community was only chosen about 30 years ago. Available infrastructure consists of a 114 primary school and a church (each with their own small generator for electricity), a public speaker 115 system, and a radio system to communicate with neighbouring communities. In contrast, the mestizo 116 community was founded 85 years ago by (former) rubber tappers from a distant community 117 elsewhere in the Peruvian Amazon, and is now inhabited by descendants of immigrants from many 118 different parts of the Peruvian Amazon. Culturally, its inhabitants could thus also be classified as 119 ribereños (Chibnik 1991), i.e. mestizos with cultural roots and significant environmental knowledge of 120 the Amazon who have lived in the area for generations. Available infrastructure consists of 121 generator-powered electricity for most of the community, a primary and secondary school, two 1 Mestizo - Spanish for mixed race, an ethnic category that can be traced back to the times of Spanish conquest, which nowadays has mainly cultural connotations about differences in ancestral knowledge and practices. 3 122 churches, a community hall, a public speaker system, mobile phone coverage, a health post, a police 123 station, two concrete pavements, two (modest) hotels, and a number of corner shops. Neither 124 community had running water or sanitation infrastructure. 125 Our sample of interviewees ranged in age from 18 to 80 years old, with 34 male and 17 female 126 respondents who were interviewed in Spanish (with the exception of seven female interviewees in 127 the Urarina indigenous community who were interviewed in Urarina with the help of a local 128 translator). Most male respondents were small-scale subsistence farmers who also engaged in 129 hunting and fishing.